Former prime minister Gordon Brown visited Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Downing Street on Saturday morning (Alamy)

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Starmer has appointed Brown as special envoy on global finance, with the former prime minister having visited Downing Street on Saturday morning. 

Harman, who was deputy leader of the Labour Party between 2007 and 2015 and now sits in the House of Lords, has been appointed as Starmer’s adviser on women and girls.

The appointments come as Starmer faces widespread criticism from within his own party, after Labour was dealt heavy losses in local council and devolved parliamentary elections across the UK this week. 

Labour has lost more than 1,100 English council seats, including in its heartlands across northern England and the Midlands, has lost power in Wales for the first time since the devolved administration was established, and failed to win power from the SNP in Scotland.

With Reform UK picking up more than 1,400 seats on local councils and the Green Party achieving the second largest national vote share after Reform, many Labour MPs have blamed Starmer and the party leadership for the results. More than 20 backbench Labour MPs have called on Starmer to resign or suggested that he cannot lead the party and government into the next set of elections next year.

Brown will reportedly advise the government on how global finance cooperation can help to boost the UK’s security and resilience, particularly looking at how international finance partnerships can support defence and security-related investment.

This will form part of the Labour government’s push to move closer to Europe.

Harman will work with ministers to bring in measures to tackle violence against women and girls, and increase women’s representation in politics and public life. The part-time role will be unpaid.

Brown has been supportive of Starmer in recent months. In February, he told the BBC in the wake of further revelations about the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador that Starmer was “a man of integrity” who “wants to do the right things”.

“Perhaps he’s been too slow to do the right things, but he must do the right things now,” he said. 

“And let’s judge what he does on what happens in the next few months, when he tries – and I believe [he] will try – to clean up the system.”

Harman, on the other hand, has been critical of the Prime Minister’s handling of the Mandelson scandal in recent months, warning that it could “finish him off”.

She has, however, said that she believes Starmer should continue as Prime Minister as long as changes are made to how the government is being run.

Speaking on Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast on Friday, Harman said: “There needs to be a consensus built and led by Keir Starmer about what the government is going to do differently, because more of the same is not acceptable.

“The country is entitled to a government that actually delivers on its manifesto, but more than that, they’re entitled to a government and a prime minister who gives them a sense of direction of where the country’s going and hope for the future.

“So it’s not just about delivering the nuts and bolts, it’s about a narrative, it’s about telling the story where people can all feel the country’s getting better.”

Labour has suffered heavy losses in London (Alamy)

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With results still rolling in on Friday evening, Labour has suffered a day of heavy losses across the country, losing voters to both the left and right. Labour has also lost power in Wales – where it has formed the government ever since devolved institutions were set up at the turn of the century.

Reflecting on the results, Khan said that while mid-term elections can often be difficult for the government of the day, what Labour was seeing on Friday “is different”.

“These results speak to a far-reaching disillusionment and fracturing in our politics, which cannot be downplayed, spun or dismissed.”

The Mayor of London, whose relationship with the Labour government has reportedly become increasingly fractured, warned on Friday that the party’s election results in London were “bitterly disappointing”.

A YouGov MRP last month predicted that Labour’s control of London councils would fall from 21 to 15 at the elections, with the party losing six councils.

With results across the capital still being declared, Labour’s losses have already exceeded that prediction.

At the time of writing, results for 23 of the 32 London councils have been declared, with Labour set to lose control of Barnet, Brent, Enfield, Ealing, Hackney, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth, Westminster and Southwark.

Khan said that the results would have a bruising effect on the capital: “Labour is only able to deliver when we win elections, whether that be general, mayoral or local. Losing control of councils in London will limit our ability to serve the public in the way we want.”

London Labour MPs have become increasingly concerned in recent months about the loss of councils in the capital, with PoliticsHome reporting on nervousness in City Hall last year about this set of elections.

The losses in London will also hit right at the heart of government, with four members of the cabinet serving as MPs in the capital, including Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Prime Minister Keir Starmer himself.

While the focus had been on the threat to Labour from Reform UK and the independent vote, the Greens have emerged as the biggest insurgent party in London.

Khan said: “Labour has lost votes in London to a variety of different parties, but the biggest change has been Labour voters switching to the Greens.”

Speaking about the country as a whole, Khan said that many people who had voted Labour in 2024 “clearly feel angry, disappointed and let down”.

“They want a Labour government to address the cost-of-living crisis while demonstrating the core values the party was established to promote,” he continued.

But Khan said that instead, “too many of the government’s achievements have been overshadowed by basic mistakes and a failure to boldly assert our progressive values.”

On London specifically, Khan said those in the capital “are also frustrated with the slow pace of change and are impatient to see the delivery they were promised”.

“London has been taken for granted for too long,” he continued.

“This must change. Without a change in course and an acceleration in delivery, the threat to Labour is existential. We risk a repeat in London, Wales and across England of what happened in Scotland, where we have still not recovered.”

“Labour is the only party capable of delivering the change our capital city and country needs, and the only party that can unite progressives and close the door to the darkness and division of Reform.  It’s time for us to be bold and show this to be true, before it’s too late.”

(Alamy)

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The centre-left, pro-independence party, led by Rhun ap Iowerth, has won over 35 per cent of the vote, making it the largest party in the Senedd.

Reform UK came second on just below 30 per cent of the vote, while Labour and the Conservatives both suffered dramatic falls in support.

The result on Friday means that Labour will not rule in Wales for the first time since its devolved institutions were set up at the turn of the century. One of the Labour Senedd members to lose their seat was Eluned Morgan, the current first minister.

The results are as follows:

Plaid Cymru: 43 seats (35.4 per cent)

Reform UK: 34 seats (29.3 per cent)

Labour: 9 seats (11.1 per cent)

Conservative: 7 seats (10.7 per cent)

Green: 2 seats (6.7 per cent)

Lib Dems: 1 (4.5 per cent)

Plaid is six seats off forming a majority in the Senedd and is expected to agree on a coalition government with Welsh Labour. Leader ap Iowerth told reporters today he was willing to “reach out” to other parties to form a government in Cardiff.

At a press conference, the Plaid leader said Wales needed a government that represented the “change” which the country voted for.

“We could all see it. We could all sense it. Wales demanded a new beginning.

“And now a new dawn beckons. But we have not yet reached the destination. Far from it. We’re just setting out on our journey, and we set off with new leadership, with new energy and new ideas.”

In an interview with The House magazine at the end of last year, the Plaid leader compared his party’s rise to that of New York’s left-wing mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

Morgan took responsibility for the result and did not lay the blame on Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose position is coming under renewed pressure amid major Labour losses across the UK.

But the result in Wales is particularly tricky for Starmer, with the country having historically been a deeply-rooted heartland for Labour.

Morgan and all of her predecessors have been Labour. Even as Labour collapsed in Scotland in 2015, and then saw its historic dominance in post-industrial parts of northern England fall away nearly a decade later, its vote managed to hold up in Wales.

The party’s founder, Keir Hardie, represented the Welsh mining town of Merthyr Tydfil, and some of its most high-profile figures, like former prime minister Jim Callaghan, have strong links with Wales.

The result represented another major electoral breakthrough for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which has cemented its status as the main challenger on the centre right of Welsh politics.